It has been a record dry season in southern California. You would not know this by looking at the lush vegetation, abundant flowers, and vast pools of the townhouse complex and everywhere else in this piece of paradise. The beach is cloud-covered all day long as the desert heats up pumping great masses of evaporation inland and keeping local temperatures in the 60 to 65 degree range. We left Iowa partly because of record heat: way up in the 95s with humidity and strong winds. Most unpleasant. And then to the mining news and this strange report: 

The axing of 160 jobs at a south-east Queensland coalmine because of the drought is just the first of a wave of job losses set to hit the region, the state opposition warns.  But Premier Peter Beattie says he does not expect mass job cuts as a result of the state’s worst drought on record. Tarong Mine today announced the cuts, which it said were unavoidable after dwindling water supplies had forced a scaling back of operations at Tarong and Tarong North power stations—which the mine supplies.

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